Today’s episode centres around Sakura and her friends meeting up at the local park for a cherry blossom viewing party. I’ve been to Japan twice but never when cherry blossoms were in bloom, so anytime I watch an anime with a scene like this I get super jealous… –pout– o(╥﹏╥)o

Sakura helps her father make the lunch she’s taking to the viewing- well actually, she’s making two lunches. One for herself and one as a surprise for Syaoran. Dammit I keep wanting to call him Li. Stupid childhood English dub While she’s partway through making it, Toya comes downstairs and asks his father for a lunch too, since his part-time job that day will not be providing one. Just then Yukito calls, and he ends up with a lunch made him for too. Everyone’s just getting a lunch today aren’t they??

There’s the usual sibling bickering between Sakura and Toya in this scene, but once Sakura calms down she asks Toya how Yukito is doing. Their father is right there so Sakura can’t just come out and be blunt likes she wants to; instead she asks Toya how much Yukito has been eating, and this is a reference back to earlier in the series when Yukito was subconsciously overeating to compensate for Yue’s magic not being strong enough. Thankfully Toya answers that Yukito is eating normally.

With Sakura’s lunches finally made, she heads out the door and meets up with Tomoyo on the way to the park. At one point while they’re walking, Sakura feels a tug on her leg, but when she looks down nothing is there.

Everyone is already at the park when Sakura and Tomoyo arrive, except for Syaoran who will be a little late. Everyone eagerly starts to sample each other’s food – everything looks so yummy!

Suddenly Sakura is pushed backwards by an invisible force! It pulls her upwards and she manages to get her boots back on her feet just as the mysterious energy continues pulling her away from her friends. Tomoyo follows after her with her camcorder, but is unable to keep up as Sakura zips away. Once Sakura is away from the public she even tries to grab onto a lamppost, but eventually has to let go because the force pulling on her is just too strong. Once she clears the forest, Sakura sees a huge cherry blossom tree with what looks like vines whipping out from it. This is where the energy is coming from!

Sakura uses Seige as a sort of pillow in the offchance that she can’t figure out how to capture the card before she hits the cherry blossom tree, but realizes it’s preventing her from capturing the card. She has to put aside her fears of running out of time in order to secure this new card. Being the brave magical girl that she is, that is exactly what Sakura does. She can see the new card’s power core in the centre of the tree’s trunk, so once she’s close enough Sakura simply captures this card. What is it? Gravitation (Gravity). Ahh, well that explains why Sakura was being pulled backwards so forcefully and without any discrepancies in the rate at which she was being dragged along.

Realizing how big and beautiful this cherry blossom tree is, Sakura and her friends relocate their viewing party to beneath this hidden tree’s long, hanging branches full of flowers. Now their group is away from everyone else and they can view the blossoms with some privacy. (Yes I know Japan is a super polite society and nothing bad would happen if they stayed where they were originally. But still, some privacy when hanging out with friends is nice, no?)

Syaoran shows up and he comes bearing some of his trademark peach buns, since he already ate lunch while he was elsewhere. Sakura is disappointed that Syaoran is full and tries not to show it, but Syaoran picks up on it immediately. He insists that he be allowed to have the lunch Sakura made for him, and she blushes when she sees how badly Syaoran wants to try it. Naturally everything she’s made is delicious. It’s a cute couple moment, and a nice way to end the episode.

After they finish eating, everyone votes that Tomoyo sing for them. She’s got a lovely voice, and all of her friends enjoy her singing very much.

Kero’s segment at the end of the episode took a quick look at the bento lunches that were brought to the flower viewing party, but what really caught my attention was the preview for next week’s episode. While this week’s episode was a little slower and much more relaxed compared to last week’s, it seems that next week’s episode will re-focus back on the robed figure from Sakura’s dreams (nightmares?). Ohhh I wish we knew more about who this person was, the suspense is killing me! xD